


never wanted more

by Laylah



Series: Concord [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, New Universe, Reconciliation, feelings are hard and no-one understands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-27
Updated: 2013-01-27
Packaged: 2017-11-27 01:37:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/656578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/pseuds/Laylah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You don't get anything like a warm welcome when you find the others. You weren't expecting any better, to be honest: you've lost the luxury of not knowing just exactly what your supposed friends think of you. But you know just how shit you are at being alone, even when the alternative is being around a bunch of people who think you're a pathetic, unfunny joke. So you square your shoulders and step out of the trees, into the circle of torchlight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	never wanted more

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, this wanders off from canon shortly before the tricksters and starts mucking around in fun things.
> 
> Thanks muchly to Roach for listening to me babble about this universe and then saying things like "You know what would be cool?" every so often.

_and if rain brings winds of change, let it rain on us forever_  
 _i have no doubt from what i've seen, i have never wanted more_

You don't get anything like a warm welcome when you find the others. You weren't expecting any better, to be honest: you've lost the luxury of not knowing just exactly what your supposed friends think of you. But you know just how shit you are at being alone, even when the alternative is being around a bunch of people who think you're a pathetic, unfunny joke. So you square your shoulders and step out of the trees, into the circle of torchlight.

Conversations die. Not all of them, but enough. You try to hold your head up and act like you belong here, scanning the crowd to see if there's anyone there who... well, who might find you a little less contemptible than most people who know you.

Wait, there's Karkat, getting up from the spot where he's been sitting next to some punk girl with Fef's horns. He comes over and first thing you notice is the sickles hanging from his belt. The next thing you notice is that he's taller than you, what the fuck.

Oh. You get it. He got to keep growing over the...however many sweeps it took them to win the game, and you're still six. _Great_. "Kar," you say. You're pretty sure whatever you say next is going to come out sounding like a plea, and you're wrestling over how to make it as minimally pathetic as possible.

"Eridan." Wow, fuck, his voice has dropped, too. It's all husky and serious and you feel like such a tool. "Welcome to the last shitty attempt at civilization in the known multiverse. Everyone gets one chance to hang around and play nice. You aggress someone, you're out."

You try to smile. You can't really remember how it goes. "Man, you got stuck playing general local auspistice already, huh?"

Karkat actually cracks a smile in return. "Grand Threshecutioner," he says. He jerks a thumb over his shoulder at the punk girl, who's watching the two of you. "By order of Her Imperious Condescension."

You gape at him like a moron. "I think I need to sit down," you say when your mouth works again.

"Nobody's stopping you," Karkat says. He saunters back over toward his maybe girlfriend, toward _the Empress_ , who is apparently now a hot punk of like nine or ten sweeps, and who is also looking past Karkat at you like she might possibly think you're interesting.

You don't even question who she is for half a second. You can see it, in her horns, in the planes of her face, that same face you saw in all the patriotic schoolfeeds of your life. She might be younger here, now, but she's the real thing. You bring your fist to your shoulder, arm crossed to guard your vascular pump, and you bow to her, crisp court protocol. Somebody—somebody suspiciously Pyrope-sounding—hoots with laughter, but when you straighten up the Empress is grinning. At you.

Maybe you'll find yourself a place to sit that's kind of near where she is. Like, probably older hotter Karkat would kick your ass for trying to get her attention right now while he's flirting with her or whatever, but you can't help wanting to at least be close by.

You pick your way through the little knots of trolls toward a vacant spot. Before you get there, though, you get interrupted a second time. Your dancestor gets up and steps into your path, smiling that awful plastic smile.

"Glad you made it, chief," he says. He's inside arm's reach and that means you have to look up to meet his violet eyes; he's more than a head taller than you. At least that means you'll have a growth spurt to look forward to.

"Yeah," you say, "I bet you are."

He looms, leaning in a little closer, and you struggle to stay put. You don't want to give ground if you can help it. "Nice of you to keep my baby warm for me," he says, nodding at the Crosshairs slung over your back. "I'll be taking it back now."

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

You take the step back because you're going to need it. It's not a retreat; it's just giving yourself some room to maneuver. You swing the Crosshairs down and into position. "Okay," you say, level as you can. "Come at me, bro."

People are moving and making noise and probably straight up freaking out but you don't take your eyes off Cronus. He's your opponent here. He's the one you're going to have to defeat if you want to keep what you've earned.

He's not attacking, though. He just stands there staring at you, staring down the barrel, frozen like the business end of the Crosshairs is an anglerfish's lure. You wait. You're not going to attack first; you heard what Karkat said about aggressing.

"Right," Cronus says, taking a big step back, raising his empty hands. "You just... go on and hang onto it a while longer, champ."

For a second you just lock up. That's it? He's not going to make you actually have the fight?

You nod, your pan full of jangling adrenaline. "Let me know when you want to claim it," you say. "I'll be ready whenever."

He keeps backing up, slowly, and when you're pretty sure he's out of good lunging range you shoulder the gun again. Your focus slowly expands to take in the rest of the group, the people watching you, the weapons in the other Alternians' hands. That would have been a damned expensive fight to go through with. You take a deep breath.

Something small and hard catches you between the shoulderblades. You spin around, snarling, to see the crackle of red and blue light a few meters away. A couple of pebbles dance in the air above Sollux's hand. "Quit waving that thing around before you put somebody's eye out," he says.

"Stick your head in a bucket an drown, Sol," you say.

You stomp over and flop down next to him. He leans close enough that your shoulders touch and doesn't ask any dumb questions about how you're doing. You don't ask him any questions about anything, Fef most of all. Conversations start happening around you again, and you close your eyes. You made it this far—you just have no idea what you'll do now.

* * *

It can't stay that easy, of course. It wouldn't be your life, even a new one, if anything went easily. Toward morning everyone starts migrating from ground level up into the treehouses they've put together, and you, like a stupid asshole, figure you'll be going along with whichever one Sollux is heading for, because you just... because reasons.

Only he stops and gives you this _look_ and you know whatever he's about to say is going to be nothing you want to hear.

"So you know I'm going to be sleeping with FF," he says.

The air gets kicked right out of your oxygen filtration bladders. "Oh," you say. You should have seen that coming. You take some kind of gulping breaths that don't do you a damn bit of good. "I guess I, I'll, I."

He nods. "I figured you wouldn't really want to see that. From, uh. What I remember."

"No," you agree, choking on the word. Everything is so fucking terrible. You turn away before he can see you start crying or anything awful like that, and blunder toward the first not-hostile face you can find. "Zahhak, you got room for one more?"

It's the Beforan Zahhak, which means he's even more awkwardly polite than the one you're used to. "Of horse," he says. "It neigh be a tight fit but I'm certain we can squeeze you in."

You stare at him, trying to figure out if he meant that to sound as dirty as it did. He just smiles his weird fixed smile at you until you give up. "Okay. Thanks."

Turns out he wasn't even fucking with you. It _is_ pretty cramped in there, with him and bigger Nitram and louder Leijon and two of the midblood former humans. They budge over and give you a spot on the floor, though, and you tug your cape tight around yourself and try to be glad you're alive.

You keep thinking about her. You can remember what her kisses taste like, and it isn't your memory but it's fucking vivid as hell. You remember how happy she was—with him, not with you. You remember how he could make her laugh, and how completely adorable that little musical glubbing is.

You do your best to put the images out of your mind. But it's well past dawn before you finally drift off.

* * *

Evening. You don't feel rested but that's never made time stop before and it's not going to start now. People are pulling together into little knots, getting to work on stuff—Zahhaks over there with some of the ex-humans, looking at the treehouses and making demonstrative gestures; Karkat yelling at people to get a water-carrying brigade together—and you're not really sure what you're doing with yourself. You look around, wondering whether anyone would want your help, wondering whether there's anything you can do here that wouldn't make you just feel like a tool.

The Empress swaggers over to you, all confident shoulders and smooth-rolling hips and you don't even know where to look. "Little Ampora," she says, and you wince.

"Your Condescension," you say with a bow.

"Dang, that is fucking _sweet_ ," she says, grinning needle-sharp and perfect. "My Threshie says you're pretty sharp with that gun."

"Kar said that about me?" you ask before you can help yourself, puffing up a little. "I mean, uh, yeah, I hunted for Fef's lusus for sweeps."

The Empress nods, looking you up and down. You can see how skeptical she is. You'll show her if she'll just give you a chance, though, you will. "Aight, kid, shoal me what you got. Your Leijon's been hunting for us, but we got a lot of hungry bassholes hanging around by now. Can you back her up?"

Your fins bristle. "The night Nepeta glubbin' Leijon outdoes me in a hunt is the night I straight up call it quits on everything," you say.

"You're shella conchfident," the Empress says.

"I shore am," you dare.

She laughs in delight and claps you on the shoulder. "Atta buoy, Ampora," she says. "Get out there and krill me somefin good."

* * *

You're staggering back to camp under the weight of this crested bear sort of thing and the first person you run into, not quite literally but maybe too close for comfort, is Kanaya, a little older and a little more poised and close to the last person you want to see. "Uh," you say. "Hi, Kan."

She nods. "Hello, Eridan."

You look at her for a minute and try to figure out what to say. She's going to be all kinds of statuesque and imposing as an adult, you can pretty much already see it. "You look great," you tell her when you've weighed your options a bit.

"Thank you," she says. "You have been hunting for the group?"

"Yeah, the Empress said I should, so."

Kanaya smiles a little. "Her name is Meenah."

"Well shit," you say, because you wouldn't have thought those two would get friendly even apart from the spectrum difference issues. "Next you'll be telling me you're makin' her new dresses."

"If only she would let me," Kanaya says, like it pains her to see the Empress walking around in those ripped up threads. Probably it does; she was always fussy about that kind of thing.

You both stand there another minute while she looks at you and you try not to fidget.

"Look, Kan," you say. "About the meteor. ...I'm sorry?"

She raises one perfectly shaped brow. "You sound unsure."

"No," you say, "or, I mean, not unsure about meaning it, just, more like, not sure if that's the right thing to say? I'm not good at this, you know I'm not, I wouldn't have been glubbin' at you to sort my shit out all the time if I were any good at it myself."

"I consider the debt repaid," she says, with a pointed glance down at where she took you right the fuck to pieces. "I cannot say it was pleasant, and your actions complicated matters for all of us, but I had as much vengeance as I needed, and now we have a new world." She pauses thoughtfully. "Do not fuck up our chances with this one."

"That's what I'm aimin' for," you say.

"Aim carefully," Kanaya says. You know a dismissal when you hear one. Part of you is pissed at the idea that you're letting some midblood landdweller _dismiss_ you, but that part gets shouted down pretty good by the part of you that's really tired of everybody thinking you're shit.

You trudge on into camp and dump your kill near the biggest fire pit, where it can get all carved up and cooked. (You maybe ate the liver already while you were out there, fresh and still steaming a little when you gutted the thing in the field, because you damn well deserved a delicacy. But you expect most of the meat will get cooked before anyone eats it.) A couple of people notice you coming in, but only Aradia stops what she's doing and comes over to investigate.

"Hey, AA," you say. "When I saw this guy's frill I was sure you'd want to—" You stop, mortified, clapping your hand over your mouth. That's not your nickname for her. That's not your _lisp_.

Aradia giggles. "I wondered about that," she says. "Sollux seemed a little different, but I didn't know you well enough to be sure if that's what was going on."

"Makes me feel a right fuckin' asshole when it happens, I ain't too proud to say." Your fins flatten with the embarrassment. Here you were talking to his moirail like you were him, ugh.

"I wouldn't worry too much about it," she says blithely, like your possession of a whole extra set of someone else's memories is a fucking trivial matter. "You still know who you are, and he still knows who he is."

"I guess," you say. You watch her admiring the bear-saurian's notched frill and you feel a little tiny bit proud of the fact that you were right, she does think it's cool. "Thanks for not hating me too much."

She giggles again. "Now you really sound like him."

"Shit," you say. "I really do."

"Don't get me wrong," Aradia says, tilting the saurian's frill forward to expose the neck. She focuses hard, swipes with one hand, and a neat lash of psionic power severs the head clean off the neck. "If you hurt anyone I care about, I'll end you! But right now everybody's fine."

You blink. "All the girls I know are fuckin' terrifying," you inform her.

She beams up at you, short lowblood teeth and plain round face, and the part of you that isn't actually you feels so comforted and safe. "Thanks!" she says. She picks up the head. "This guy's going to look awesome when he's cleaned up."

"Yeah. Glad you like it," you hazard. You have no idea what to do with yourself. This is nothing like your life.

* * *

Morning, time for dinner before dawn comes, and everyone's just sitting around waiting for the food. Your and Nepeta's kills are both on the fire, and some of the ex-humans have hunted up some roots they swear you can eat if you boil them first, so those are cooking too. You're mostly keeping to yourselves, at the edge of the group—you because it's the easiest way to avoid people hating you, and Sollux because it's the easiest way to avoid hating people.

When he gets up from the log you're using as a bench, you grab at his pants leg before you've noticed how stupid you're being. He stares down at you. "I'm just going to take a piss, ED."

"Oh." You let go in a hurry. "Sorry, didn't even mean to do that."

"Yeah." It's not a sarcastic _yeah, right_ , just a flat agreement like he knows, and you're sort of grateful. "Right back," Sollux says. He steps away and you don't make an ass out of yourself this time by clinging or following him or stupid shit like that. He's perfectly capable of handling himself and you have no interest in watching him piss like some kind of creeper, so—

Cronus is going after him.

Oh like hell you're going to let that stand. You get up, sling the Crosshairs over your shoulder, and follow.

The woods get pretty dense pretty fast outside your clearing, so it's hard to see all that far ahead of you. You're also trying not to get yourself noticed—you won't be the one to start trouble here, on the off chance that Cronus maybe has a good reason for what he's doing right now. You'll _finish_ trouble if you need to, but you're not starting it.

"For fuck's sake, ED, I said I was just going to piss," Sollux says from somewhere up ahead. "Are you seriously—"

"It's dangerous being out here on your own," Cronus says. "You shouldn't be wandering off with nobody to look out for you, kiddo."

You're close enough to see them by that point, close enough to see Cronus's arm settle over Sollux's skinny shoulders as Sollux is still doing up his jeans. "Don't touch me," Sollux says, flat and almost bored-sounding. That's no way to get Cronus to back off. You gotta be more forceful than that; doesn't he know that already?

"What kind of a way is that to talk to someone who's worried about you?" Cronus asks. He reaches up with his other hand like he's about to take hold of Sollux's jaw. You swing the Crosshairs down into position—

And Cronus flies backward a good ten feet, hitting a tree and slumping down in a heap, still sparking blue and red. Sollux looks over at you. "Coming to my rescue?"

"Guess you didn't really need it," you say awkwardly, shrugging the Crosshairs back onto your shoulder.

"I've got practice," he says. He still looks bored, the stone-cold bastard. "Ugly pissblood ought to be grateful a seadweller would even touch him." You wince, because Cronus might've been thinking something like that, but Sollux is getting that justification from his copy of your stupid memories.

"I'm kind of a huge asshole," you say. "You can punch me, if that would help?"

Sollux cocks his head and sneers at you like royalty. "What makes you think I would need your permission for that?" he asks, in a perfect seadweller accent. You gape at him.

He socks you on the arm as he walks past you back toward the campsite, nowhere near hard enough to hurt, almost friendly. You catch a quick flash of his fangs. "Come on, dumbass, we don't want to miss dinner."

* * *

You volunteer to stand one of the day watches, because if you're going to suck at sleeping anyway you might as well be doing something productive with it. And maybe you'll feel less like they're just tolerating you if you can just fucking keep _busy_. Karkat looks kind of skeptical at first, which hurts, but the Empress—Meenah—says, "Naw, let 'im kelp," and Rose sides with her, so you wind up on first watch.

Sunlight here isn't dangerous the way it was back home, just a little uncomfortable on the eyes. You stick to the shade and keep a look out for trouble—so far the biggest and nastiest of the local wildlife seem to live on the plains, not in the forest, but it's only been a few days and that's way too little experience to get comfortable on. So you sit up with the Crosshairs and do your part.

It doesn't do much to keep your mind occupied, though. You keep going over all the awful interpersonal messes you've been dealing with since you got here. You _think_ stuff is sorted with your dancestor for now. Hopefully you'll have time to grow up a little and put on some more muscle before he really goes for you. He will go for you, you're pretty sure; it's just a matter of time.

Meantime, though, Kanaya and Karkat seem to be more or less okay with you. Sollux is complicated, but in a way you're pretty sure you both get and don't have to talk about. The Empress is flat-out amazing and doesn't hate you yet. So the biggest loose end you still gotta deal with... is Fef.

You tried to apologize to her once before, when you and Sol were... together. It didn't go so great, more sort of you making an ass of yourself than anything else. But maybe you could try again now. Maybe you could figure out ahead of time what you're going to say and not fuck it up so bad.

You practice a little, while you're here with not much else to do. You pace between the trees and keep an eye out for anything moving and try to get the words to line up neatly. You really want it to go right this time. For once in your sorry excuse for a life, you want to do right where she's concerned. You try out the sound of it, making sure you've got the words in order. Rehearsing.

Then you turn around at the end of one of your circuits and find Karkat standing there at the base of a rope ladder, watching you. "Er," you say.

"Somehow," he says, "I had forgotten what a complete and total feelings disaster you are at all times."

Your shoulders hunch. It's still not right, Karkat being bigger than you. "If you could just, I guess, pretend you never heard that, I'd be much obliged."

He claps a broad warm hand on your shoulder. "I think you've got it down. Go on up and get some sleep, it's my watch."

"Oh." You let him steer you toward the rope ladder, then stop with your foot on the first rung. "You think it'll work?"

Karkat gives you a thinky frown. "I don't know if 'work' is the right word," he says. "It's not like apologizing is a straightforward business transaction or something. Insert contrition, receive pardon." He sighs. "But I think it needs to be said, so good on you for trolling up enough to do it."

"Thanks," you say. It's not what you wanted to hear but it's better than you expected, at least a little. And he's being honest with you. That's a thing you and Sollux both remember, isn't it? Karkat's not always nice but he's _true_ , and that's worth something. "Thanks, Kar."

"Sure, whatever." He waves you off. "Go get some fucking sleep."

You climb up the ladder and discover that the available spot in the treehouse, the one Karkat must have vacated to take over for you, is right next to Meenah. Fuck. You try to be careful and quiet as you stretch out on the floor so you won't bother her, but she cracks an eye open anyway.

"Filling in for my Threshie?" she asks drowsily.

 _Wow_ , do you not want to ask just how many ways she means that. "If, uh, that's okay."

"Shore," Meenah says, waving a jeweled hand. "Eel free."

You still don't know exactly what that entitles you to, but at least it means you're welcome here. It's a nice feeling. You hold onto it as you drift off.

First thing in the evening you go looking for Fef. Your gastric sac is in knots and you don't think you'll be able to eat anything until you get this over with. You find her talking to Nepeta and one of the ex-humans, the brownblood. Roxy. "Uh," you say, eloquent as you please. "Fef, can I talk to you for a minute?"

She hesitates a second and Roxy puts her hands on her hips, giving you the kind of sass no Alternian lowblood ever would have. "Don't you go bothering Feferi now," she says. "She has had _more_ than enough boy trouble."

"I'm not," you protest awkwardly.

"Thank you, Roxy," Fef says. "It's all right." Roxy and Nepeta keep glaring at you but you take a good grip on your dignity and ignore them, because Fef is leading you a little ways off so you can talk a bit. She's so poised and pretty and graceful, in this way that turns you inside out now, when you can see the kind of distance it puts between you.

You clear your throat. "So, I don't know if Sol's said anything about me since we got here, or if I'm just kind of a topic you guys'd rather avoid...."

"He did say he thought you'd probably want to talk to me at some point," Fef says, which is better than you were expecting, but then, he does kind of get you now.

"Okay," you say. All your rehearsing feels so pointless now. The words have flown right out of your head. "I wanted to say I'm sorry. For killin' you, obviously, which was straight up the dumbest thing I ever did in my life, but also for, I don't know, being so totally shitty to be in a quadrant with and never making you happy. I want you to be happy, Fef, I do." You're trying so hard not to say the rest, the part that'll fuck this up: _I wish you could be happy with me_. You clamp your tongue between your teeth and don't let that bit out.

Fef nods all slow and graceful like she's granting a stay of execution. "Thank you," she says. "It means a shoal lot to me to hear that, Eridan." She pauses, stately and sad. "I want you to be happy, too. I don't bereef we were good fur— _for_ each other, but we all got a great opperchtunity to try again here."

"Do you... do you think _we_ could try again?" you ask and her fins do a thing that means you should have kept your stupid mouth shut.

"I can't purromise anyfin," she says, gentle as can be, and you were expecting that but it feels like a trident through the ribs all the same. Knowing it and hearing are two different kinds of hurt, you guess. "I don't want to lie to you. It never worked, with us. We'd both have to be different."

You nod. You can't breathe. "I have to—go," you manage, and you abscond.

Everyone's out of the treehouses by now, starting their routines for the night and whatnot, so when you climb back up into one there's nobody to see you fall apart. You feel so fucking ugly when you cry this hard, your face screwed up all stupid and your skin coloring up in blotches. It just fucking _hurts_ , and you knew it wouldn't be any different and you knew it was over but this sucks.

After a few minutes of that you hear the rope ladder creak and then Karkat says, "Knock knock," brisk and no-nonsense, more an announcement that he's coming in than a request for permission.

You wipe helplessly at your face like you could get rid of the evidence. "Nobody home," you say.

"Breaking and entering, then," Karkat says, and heaves himself into the treehouse with you. He sits down next to you, close enough that you can feel the warmth of his shoulder barely brushing yours. "I'm not going to ask if you're okay," he says, "because I know that shit sucks a lot and you probably feel like stewed musclebeast asshole right now."

"Gross, Kar," you sniffle, trying not to smile through your tears.

He nods graciously. "So. That sucked, but you did it anyway, and that's going to mean a lot to people. To Feferi, yeah, but also to the rest of the Alternians. If you can stick with it and let her be, that's going to be a really clear sign that you're serious about changing."

You take a deep breath, even if it shakes a little. "Right."

"Also, as long as the apology virus is going around... I owe you one, too." You look over at him and he's studying his claws really hard. "I'm sorry about letting you get stuck on LOWAA alone for so long. I've had a lot of time over the course of the game to think about all the ways I fucked up, and that's definitely one of them."

"Fat lot of good that does now," you say, and you think you're about to start crying again. Goddamnit. Why is he being nice to you? Why couldn't you have just shut up and let him?

"I know," Karkat says, and he sounds honestly sorry. "But that's why I'm here now, okay? I'm trying to learn from my mistakes. This time around I'm not going to let any of my friends suffer alone."

"Oh." You sit quietly for a minute and take that in. You're still his friend, after everything. He doesn't want you to have to be alone. That almost sounded like a promise that he'll be there when you need him, from now on. "Thanks," you say. Your voice is really small.

Karkat slings an arm around your shoulders. "Don't make me regret it, you big jerk," he says. "Now come down and have breakfast. Everyone's going to have to work their asses off for the foreseeable future if we want to make this planet livable."

You nod stiffly and let him haul you to your feet. His hand is callused and warm. You've got a long way to go from here. But at least this time you won't have to go it alone.

 _with this line i'll mark the past as a symbol of beginning_  
 _i have no doubt from what i've seen, i have never wanted more_  
—VNV Nation, "Solitary"


End file.
